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Chapter Three

What was my name before I was The Thing? I didn't know. It seemed so long ago, in a hazy enthralling reality that seemed so blissful in comparison to the dystopia that had become my life. It was hard to describe, living in a half awake state that seems as though it is one big dream with only slashes of reality cutting through the haze, bringing me out of my stupor. My life seemed unreal once more as the droplets of salt slid down my face in a hot blaze of incandescent, iridescence. Immaculate. Untainted. Pure. It was the purity which I found beautiful. In my short life, there had been a limited amount of beautiful things I had seen. 17 years old and I could only remember 3 months of my life. It was a perfect symbolism. The vertical bars of luminescence penetrated the darkness through the leaves as I drifted in and out of consciousness. Surely this wasn't happening to me, I wondered to myself absently. A sickroom hush fell across the world until there was no sound except the frantic beat of my heart and the unstoppable scream that ripped its way out of my throat like knives. There were no words to describe the hot rods of pain that lashed my back and body. The slash of reality was no longer figuritve as the whips of leather slashed and slashed at my back without mercy, rendering my body a bloody slab of meat in which to gawk at. I no longer felt the sting of my pride at being reduced to this. I no longer felt cared at my loss of dignity as my white shirt lay on the floor in bloody tatters, the pure force of the whip enough to tear through cloth and flesh alike. The gleeful shouts and jeers echoed around me, but it was all numb, as though once again it was happening to someone else. A brief flash of a face flickered behind my lids. Dressed all in white, a syringe in her hand. Bees hummed in my ears as I fought to stay conscious, fought to keep the darkness from pulling my vision under in a tentacle of raw, masculine power. I was a fool to think that accepting the role would be any benefit, that I could escape any worse fate than death. I was wrong I discovered. Death at least had an end. A comfortable nothingness. An enveloping darkness that was finite. As lash after lash hit my body with an earth quaking force, sending my restrained body in uncontrollable spasms, I wanted to weep and beg for my death like a coward. Another scream was ripped out of my throat, skin grating like sandpaper until hot, wet blood filled my mouth with its metallic, coppery taste. I gagged. I vomited what little was in my stomach onto the ground below, my own sick mixing in with the pool of blood forming at my feet. There was a brief lapse, and I felt no respite, the stabs became an unbearable throb as I felt blood trickle down my backs and legs, pooling at my feet. I knew that it would continue until I was dead. Cheers increased in their tempo as they realized I was close to the end, their frenzy for blood mixed in the air until there was a violent energy that I couldn't resist but be drawn into as well. The world pulsed around me like strobe lights, leering faces increasing and decreasing in size as the screams of lust faded in and out in the same flow of my consciousness. Big hands cupped my face in a gentle, sensitive embrace, pulling up my head until I locked eyes onto those piercing malevolent blue. Instead of an expression of cruel delight, all I saw was a mask of sincerity and pity. Only a mask.

He asked me how close I was to dying.

I couldn't form words in response, my grasp on reality foggy and thoughts slippery and unsubstantial. A thick mist filled my head as though my ears were stuffed with gauze. He shook my face.

No response.

He punched.

The sharp stab of pain and flow of blood from my nose brought me to. I wanted to cry and beg for mercy, to lose every last bit of dignity that I had left. I knew it would be no use, so I spat the glob of blood that had collected disgustingly in my mouth and onto his face. One last moment of satisfaction before it was all gone in a vision of absolute nothingness. I embraced it. The red stained his pale features, and he dramatically wiped the substance from his perfect, angelic face. I expected him to be angry, to have me executed right then and there.

No one was more surprised than I when he ordered me to be untied and given medical attention.

Everyone stared at me in shock, incredulity, disbelief and distrust.

Aris stared at me for a long moment, as though trying to remember me from somewhere. His dark eyes searched mine warily, and I tried to meet his gaze defiantly but I was the one to pull away, cheeks flaming. In the corner of my eye I saw a small smile tug at his lips.

"Fine, listen." Aris said, tearing his gaze away from me and locking onto Newt. "I was thrown into this gigantic maze made out of huge stone walls – but before that my memory was erased. I couldn't remember anything about my life from before. I just knew my name. I lived there with a bunch of girls. There must've been fifty of them, and I was the only boy. We escaped a few days ago – the people who helped kept us in a big gym for a few days, then moved me here last night – but no one explained anything. What's this stuff about you all being in the maze too?" Even though he was speaking collectively, he was looking at me with a blazing intensity that I wasn't used to. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, well aware that everyone's attention had turned to me. Heat rose to my face.

My mind was reeling. Three mazes. One for Aris, one for me, and one for all these boys.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath before I explained. But three mazes, all created for what purpose? It was incomprehensible. Why on earth would any one do that? At first I thought it was a cruel sport, but now… it seems something so much more. More monumental than anything I could comprehend.

I took a deep sigh. I opened my eyes to find everyone staring back at me. "Pretty much sums up where I was too. There were walls that reached the sky, and we would be trapped in the Glade at nightfall. The maze was a safer bet than the Glade." I said, bitterness tinging my voice like poison. I yanked myself away from that. Before I could continue, Newt interrupted.

"Wait a minute," Newt said. "You both lived in a big maze, separate from each other, on a farm, with walls that closed every night? Just you and a few doezen girls? How many were in yours?" He directed at me.

I gulped. "400. Two hundred boys, two hundred girls."

"Were there creatures called Grievers? Were you the last one to arrive? And did everything go buggin' nuts when you did? Did you come in a coma? With a note that said you were the last one ever?" A small part of this made sense to me, but the wide eyes Aris had meant that it was significant to his time in the maze.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Aris was saying even before the Newt had finished. "How do you know all this? How…"

"It's the same shuck experiment," Minho said. "Or the same, whatever. But they had all girls and one boy, we had all boys and one girl. WICKED must've built three mazes, run three different tests." His eyes locked onto mine. "Now… tell us why yours was different."

I shot a worried look to Minho, panic already setting in as I remember that place. The field of blood, the creatures… My eyes begged him not to make me recall that place. They pleaded. All I was met with the same determination and my last chance at having any faith in these people were lost. It left me like a deflated balloon, sweeping through my insides and removing it until there was nothing. Nothing but bitterness and pain and anger. I felt a slight shift in myself. My features hardened, as did my heart. "Very well." I said in the most clipped tone that I could.

"I was in the Maze. I was in the Glade. 200 boys, 200 girls. No names. No supplies. Nothing. It didn't take long for cannibalism to ensue due to lack of supplies. The second that it did, supplies were sent up. Like the people who put us in here wanted it to happen." My voice was cold, clinical, hard, devoid of all emotion. Contrasting the whirlwind of emotions that churned my stomach into twists and wanted me to run, run as far away as I could. "The King ruled like a tyrant, killing, torturing, raping whoever he felt like it. I was called The Opie."

"What the shuck is an opie?"

I had a small smile at that. "I found some opium poppies. Managed to get a decent high out of it." I said darkly. Uneasy looks were shared with the gladers, and I felt a swell of pride. They had no idea what kind of dark, dirty place in which I was born. I could continue to make them uneasy, but all I had to do was shove down my fear into the smallest pits of myself as I have done before. I resisted a shiver at the thought, not wanting to revert to my previous self – but it was necessary for my survival. "To save my skin I became The Thing." I offered no explanation, and the hazed looks on the boys suggested that if I tried they would just get more and more confused. "I escaped. Stole some food. A miniature war occurred. It was anarchy." I abstained from the darker part of my past. They didn't need to know. Not like being a drug lord wasn't dark, but still.

"Wait, so you were just thrown in with a bunch of psychos, taking drugs, and torturing each other?" Minho asks, his vice laced with disbelief.

I resisted the urge to laugh. The way he was so distrusting and matter of fact, reminded me of myself. "Yep. Sums it up."

"Well that doesn't make me trust you."

"I never asked you to." I shoot back, angry. "The second we get out of here, I'm gone from you."

"Good."

"Good!"

"Where are the others?" Newt prompts into the air. I stare at him with dead eyes, and I cannot help the cruel twist of my blood red lips, although it had a complete lack of humour.

"They're all dead." I say with a pained voice, but with a sadistic hint of relish had my lips twisting further. "I was the only survivor."